Development of Profitable Phytoremediation of Contaminated Soils with Biofuel Crops

Abstract

Contamination of agricultural soil has been a worldwide concern, and phytoremediation is a promising alternative to conventional soil clean-up technology as a low cost and environment-friendly technology. However, the field application of phytoremediation is still limited, because of its low efficiency and long-period needed. In this paper, with discussion of the characteristics, mechanisms and development of phytoremediation, we suggested a profitable phytoremediation strategy using biofuel crops for both utilization and remediation of contaminated soil. In this strategy, the owners of contaminated sites possibly cost nothing, but obtain income through selling the biofuel crop for factories produced biofuel, thus the practical application of phytoremediation can be effectively promoted. In order to test the feasibility of the suggested strategy, a hydroponic cultural experiment and a pot experiment were carried out to assess the phytoremediation potential of some biofuel crops. The hydroponic cultural experiment showed that the two biofuel plants, sunflower and maize, had a better or similar accumulation level of Pb, Cu and Cd than the two accumulator plants. The pot cultural experiment showed that wheat and barley with white-rot-fungus inoculation greatly promoted crop biomass, soil microbial population, and dioxins removal efficiency. These results indicate that phytoremediation using biofuel plants possibly works effectively for remediation of contaminated soils as well as provide economic benefits to the owners of contaminated sites. Therefore, biofuel crops would be a reasonable choice for phytoremediation of contaminated soils.